Attacks commence with the delivery of the PDF-spoofing 'Report.lnk' file.
Weaponised .LNK files have been used to facilitate the distribution of the DeerStealer malware as part of a novel phishing campaign.
According to an analysis from ANY.RUN researchers, attacks commence with the delivery of the PDF-spoofing 'Report.lnk' file that prompts mshta.exe execution of wildcard path-using scripts to evade detection, Cyber Security News reports.
Aside from deactivating logging and profiling functionalities to ensure stealth, the script also conducts character pair decoding to conceal malicious logic before launching DeerStealer, which establishes persistence.
"The script dynamically resolves URLs and binary content from obfuscated arrays, downloads a fake PDF file to distract the user, writes the payload into AppData and silently runs it," said ANY.RUN researchers.
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Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
